Google Analytics 360 + Salesforce.

Google Analytics and Salesforce are working together to connect sales, marketing and advertising data, giving you the full view of what’s working across your ads, websites, emails, call centers, and more. Read the update.

With the Measurement Protocol, I can send, store, and visualize any data I want without having to build a backend collection system. I’ve even used it in my personal life to track my sleep patterns, the temperature in my house, and the number of times my brother’s cat actually uses his scratching post.

So when my team started using Slack, a real-time messaging app for teams, I wanted to get the stats. Which clients are contacting us most frequently? When are the contacting us? More importantly, who on our team is the wordiest and uses the most emojis? Out of the box, the app offered some data, but it wasn’t enough for me to answer all the questions I had.

After taking a look at the technical documentation for the messaging app, I realized that Google Analytics is the answer! With the Measurement Protocol and the Slack Real Time API, I could get SO MUCH DATA!! With help from fellow developer Joe Zeoli, Slackalytics was born.

Slackalytics (in beta) is a simple, open source bot for analyzing Slack messages. Built in node.js, it grabs messages from Slack (using the Slack Real Time Messaging API), does some textual analysis, and counts the occurrences of specific instances of words and symbols. Then, using the Measurement Protocol, it sends the data to your Google Analytics account.

Screenshot of the report showing the custom metrics (emoji, exclamation, word, and ellipse counts) for different Slack channels.

Developer or not, you can build and test your own bot by using Google Analytics and any communication app that has a realtime API. Find out when your clients ask the most questions, monitor other integrations and bots, find out who talks in or build your own new Custom Dimension & Metrics combos.